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Monday, January 25, 2016

“Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, pose for a family photograph. Police say the couple were kidnapped in January by alleged carjackers, tortured and raped before each was slain.”

The foregoing KNS caption is nine years old. There's nothing "alleged" about what the black attackers did to the kids, not for years. Five of their seven black killers have been convicted, with two, identified by semen, as yet at large. By the way, Jamie Satterfield made up a racial fairy tale, whereby the last two black rapist-killers don't exist. She has long insisted, forensic science be damned, that the semen of the last two black rapist-killers identified were just admixtures of the semen from the known, convicted, black rapist-killers, Lemaricus Davidson and his half-brother, Letalvis Cobbins.

An accomplice [sic] in the January 2007 torture-slayings of a Knoxville couple is asking the nation's highest court to review his case.

[George Thomas was a killer, not an "accomplice." He put a bullet in Christopher Newsom's brain.]

George Thomas contends via defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson that the Tennessee law of criminal responsibility under which he was convicted in the killings of Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, 23, is unconstitutional both on paper and as applied in his case.

Johnson has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. In it, he argues Thomas' convictions present a perfect test case of criminal responsibility laws across the nation that rely on the theory that although a defendant might not have intended the specific crime committed, he or she knew the outcome was likely.

Thomas was one of three men convicted as principle players in the carjacking, kidnapping, rapes and slayings of Christian and Newsom. Unlike ringleader Lemaricus Davidson and his brother, Letalvis Cobbins, there was no direct evidence, including DNA, to link Thomas.
His own words in a statement to police were the chief proof against him. In that statement, Thomas admitted he knew Davidson planned to carjack someone and was present in Davidson's Chipman Street house when the couple were brought — bound — inside. He said he surmised a fourth man, Eric Boyd, left with Newsom to kill him. Prosecutors have yet to amass evidence enough to charge Boyd, who is serving a federal sentence for harboring Davidson after the crimes.

Thomas also confessed doing nothing to rescue Christian, who remained alive hours after Newsom's slaying and was repeatedly raped and beaten. He admitted riding in Christian's stolen vehicle, fleeing to Kentucky after Newsom's body was found and monitoring websites for news about the investigation.

There was circumstantial evidence, too, though, including an independent witness who said he saw four men inside Christian's vehicle around the time Newsom would have been taken to his death alongside nearby railroad tracks and testimony from Davidson's girlfriend that Thomas was in the living room with Davidson, Cobbins and Boyd at a time when authorities believe a fifth suspect, Vanessa Coleman, was holding Christian captive inside a bathroom just a few feet away.

Just as in Thomas' case, the state had no direct evidence against Coleman. She, too, confessed being inside Davidson's home throughout the couple's captivity and deaths. She was convicted of lesser facilitation charges. Thomas, though, was convicted of the same crimes for which Davidson and Cobbins were deemed guilty under the legal theory known as criminal responsibility. The key difference between facilitation and criminal responsibility is intent. Coleman, a jury concluded, didn't intend through either her actions or inaction for the crimes to occur but nonetheless helped. A different jury decided Thomas' actions and inaction were intended to either help carry out the crimes or to benefit from them.

Thousands of defendants are convicted each year in Tennessee under the criminal responsibility law of crimes they did not personally carry out — the getaway driver, the lookout, the planner, to name a few examples.

Attorney Johnson argues in his U.S. Supreme Court petition that Tennessee's criminal responsibility law has been stretched so broadly through Tennessee Supreme Court rulings a defendant doesn't even have to intend to aid or benefit from the particular crimes at issue but any misdeeds that reasonably could occur. It's known as the "natural and probable consequences doctrine," and, as Johnson notes in his petition, appellate courts across the country have split on its constitutionality.

Johnson hopes that split among lower courts will lure the high court into taking Thomas' case.

"Through the natural and probable consequences doctrine, Thomas has been condemned to consecutive life terms simply for being an otherwise homeless man present in a house in which other armed individuals were committing crimes, during which they refused to allow him to leave," Johnson wrote.

"Accordingly, this case involves an important issue in which there is a split of authority in the lower courts over the constitutional limits to accomplice liability in criminal cases involving the common law doctrine of natural and probable consequences," he wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court only accepts a handful of cases each year, so the odds of success for Thomas in even garnering a hearing are low.
Thomas is serving life without parole as is Cobbins. Davidson received the death penalty. Coleman was sentenced to 35 years.

War criminal George Thomas. “George Thomas, an accomplice [sic] in the January 2007 torture-slayings of a Knoxville couple, is asking the nation's highest court to review his case.”

About Me

I am a dissident journalist, whose work has been published in dozens of daily newspapers, magazines, and journals in English, German, and Swedish, under my own name and many pseudonyms. While living in internal exile in New York, where I am whitelisted, I maintain NSU/The Wyatt Earp Journalism Bureau and some eight other blogs (some are distinctive but occasional venues, while others are mirrors), and also write for stout-hearted men such as Peter Brimelow and Jared Taylor. Please hit the “Donate” button on your way out. Thanks, in advance.
Follow my tweets at @NicholasStix.

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